Extracted Text

The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

The condition became so severe that in October General VicenteFilisola, commandant general of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon re-placing Nicolas Bravo, detached several battalions of troops fromhis headquarters post at Matamoros to build up the garrisons inthe frontier towns for better protection "from the predatoryincursions of the Comanche Indians."28 Finally, in November, theTampico regiment and two hundred infantrymen were sent fromMatamoros toward the Nueces on the strength of reports that theIndians were molesting the settlements in that area.29 For lackof information, it is difficult to assess the success of these effortsto control the Indians, but it appears that the Indians, thoughthey continued to raid the area,30 never again attacked the lowerRio Grande as severely as they did during these terrible years of1836 and 1837.Thus it was that the Plains Indians, not unknown to the lowerRio Grande region, stepped up their raids during the year of theTexas Revolution, and continued into the next year. The frontierfolk put up much resistance to the inroads but seemed to be over-whelmed by sheer weight of numbers. The settlers seemed tosuffer from neglect through the bureaucratic paralysis and emptycoffers following the disastrous Texas campaigns. One cannot helpbut wonder whether, despite the efforts of the army finally in thelatter stages of 1837 to control the savages, it were not the west-ward press of the Texans and the work of their "border companies"that finally cut off the raids into the southern reaches of the RioGrande. Certainly the reoccupation of San Antonio revived astrong point of control of the Apaches and Comanches.There are important effects that stream from these raids-atleast they contribute significantly to certain developments. Land-owners and stock owners living north of the Rio Grande beganmoving to the southern side, tending to loosen Mexico's hold onthe area and to make Texas' claim easier to establish. Those With-drawing left much of their stock-especially cattle-in the trans-Nueces area, and, after a few generations, the Longhorns becameplentiful, furnishing the basic stock for early ranching in Texas.28Smith to Forsyth, October 16, 1837, in ibid.29E1 Mercurio (Matamoros), November 24, 1837.30J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas (Austin, 1935), 67-68.